Blades and Bastards
by TangleToy
Summary: Pete Wisdom journeys through the afterlife with an old teammmate.


Disclaimer: Marvel Entertainment owns these characters and their universe. I make no money molesting them, but the hairy palms are worth it. Rated PG-13 because I wouldn't stand within swinging distance of my mother with this mouth, let alone kiss her.  
  
Authors Notes: Dedicated to Luba, a long-standing champion of scruffy, English gits. Also dedicated to WinterOak, who always made Pete Wisdom breathe for me. Many thanks to Rossi and Luba for the beta-read. God bless beta-readers and the trees they grow on. No MiST or Pop-Ups please. Request before archiving. Flamers can bite my ass, but praise and constructive criticism will earn you sloppy kisses.  
  
Story Notes: Once upon a time Marvel let Warren Ellis kill off Pete Wisdom. After fans cried foul he appeared in one of those, 'Oops, we didn't really mean it,' resurrections. I chose to do something different and I hope interesting. Enjoy.  
  
  
Blades and Bastards  
  
Part One  
  
By TangleToy  
  
The gunshot's report was so loud that Pete Wisdom squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing until tears slipped from the corners. The sound echoed in his head, becoming the soundtrack to a short and Tarantino-esque replay of his rather spectacular but brief life. The reverberation moved off like a storm to sea, and his facial muscles relaxed enough to open his eyes. The scene had shifted though, and gone were the dark warehouse walls and the ugly death by allergy to bullets. Before him lay a seemingly endless desert wasteland of cracked dry mud. "What in hell is this?"  
  
"Close, but still off by a mile. Welcome to the crossroads of Limbo, traveler."  
  
Amanda Sefton watched as an ever-rumpled Pete spun about on his heel so quick, the tip of his long, straight nose banged the freestanding iron-gate between them. She watched the confusion play across the face of her former Excalibur teammate as he puzzled out the sudden appearance of both, and hoped the soft folds of her hood shielded her features from his sight. "From here, each realm of Limbo shares a border, and I'm here to keep you company until you get where you belong." This nether world had been vaster than thought, and the boundaries between the lands - demon, soul, and others not yet crossed - were too thin in places. She hated her job of keeping those assigned to one from traveling freely through the others; but even more, she hated seeing old friends cross her territory now. It was hard to witness the sometimes-failed journeys of the people who had once helped her through her own. But that was her burden now, and she wouldn't shirk it.  
  
Taking in the silver horns and white hooded cat suit, the Englishman snorted in disdain. He had recognized the voice almost instantly, and the outfit was almost exactly like the description Kitty had once related. "Even in death I can't get away from you X-wankers. I'll go before God, and he'll have a little x on his belt and a direct line to  
Baldy's study." He struck a match off the thick slabs of concrete block holding up the stand-alone gate, and lit his cigarette. "Let me guess.  
You're the ghost of X-Men past, and I've been a bad, bad man." Smoke drifted up from his mouth, encircling his head in a wreath of burnt tobacco. "Let's skip all this depressing crap, and you just show me my grave site. Then I can bless us everyone, and get back to my life of debauchery."  
  
The new Magik bit the inside of her cheek. She was the representative face of Limbo; she wouldn't laugh if she could help it. She smoothed a hand across the front of her white outfit, trying to compose her voice. An absent-minded touch to one of the silver horns jutting out from her forehead, and she went on, "A match? Why not a hot knife? Surely after all this time you have a degree of control over your abilities?"  
  
"Typical X-response. Why use a feather, when a sledgehammer makes a wonderful crater in the linoleum." He flicked the butt of his cigarette to his feet, and ground it under his heel. All the while, his eyes darted about taking in the barren lands, and the strange structure before him. "It's a wonder that old git Xavier is as rich as he is, what with the damage bills his teams must rack up."  
  
"And you know better?" Amanda asked, surprised at Wisdom's calm. He stood before her as he once did, a mixture of boyish arrogance and worldly experience. The wrinkles in his dark suit and tie seemed to fall neatly into the wrinkles that appeared a natural part of his character. He was a rumpled king, who expected you to appreciate his state of disarray.  
  
"My kids do all right. I'm a good mentor." Pete's eyes caught a stray lock of red hair peeking from beneath Magik's hood, and that resolved her identity for him, and the need for care. When Magik was involved that meant demons, and demons demanded caution.  
  
"Which is why Tabitha killed a man on instinct, and you're here.  
Charles Xavier may be crippled, but he's still breathing." Amanda watched Pete from between the bars until he looked away. She knew he hadn't a clue about Meltdown's actions. She was just using the shock of it to shake his foundation. "What? You seemed taken aback but not surprised."  
  
Wisdom turned his back to her. "I taught them well."  
  
"Yes, just like you were taught." Pete winced, and Amanda could see the muscles in his shoulders tighten. He would turn around to her angry now. He would try to hurt her like she'd hurt him; and then when he made the wrong choice in a few moments, like all the wrong choices he had made, she wouldn't ache as much.  
  
As he turned back, his words were soft and sad. "Don't be so hard on me, Amanda." Pete gave her a distorted smile at her gasp. "Didn't think I knew, did ya? Hard not to. Illyana was a child when she took the mantle of Magik. Kitty told me about her. They were best friends. You're too curvy to be a little girl."  
  
"She was fourteen. She was hardly a little girl. Besides, I could be Illyana all grown up."  
  
"And I could be the Queen of England. I just carry my own scepter in my pocket." He waggled his eyebrows. "Want to see it?"  
  
With a frustrated sigh, Amanda pulled the hood down so they could look eye-to-eye. "Fine, you know me. Well, I know you too. It doesn't give you much leverage here." She shrugged a little. "I should have known an old spook would figure me out."  
  
"Yeah, well your voice gave it away. I have a good memory, and I remember I always tried to deal you fair, Sefton." Pete went on, his voice rising as if her outstretched hand and shaking head made her deaf to his words, "I have always tried to deal you fair. Help me out here. I'm not supposed to be here. Those kids -- because that's what they still are, no matter what they think -- need me. And God help me, I need them. Do you know what my life has been like since Excalibur? It's been an endle-"  
  
"Peter, I don't get to say who comes and who goes. I keep those that belong here within the boundaries of Limbo that claim them, and I help those through that are merely on a journey. End of story. I can't help you even if I wanted to."  
  
The gate rang from his sharp kick to the bars. "Fine! Then at least tell me this then, am I on a journey?"  
  
"I don't know, are you?" She held her breath and waited.  
  
"Don't you know? Isn't this demon's Limbo? I thought you were mistress of this place! Aren't you Belasco's new lap dog?"  
  
Magik's finger stabbed through the bars into Pete's chest. "I am no one's lap dog, and don't you forget it! Whether you're on a journey or not isn't up to me. We're just here at the crossroads to determine what your place is here in my domain, and then to get you there."  
  
"Fine," he nodded and moved off, turning his back on her again.  
  
"Fine," she said and waited, standing her ground on the other side of the gate. Amanda watched him stomp off some distance away, flailing his arms. He stopped to stare off into the horizon for a moment, before finally giving vent to his feelings of frustration. Kicking at the ground and sending clods of earth sailing, he cursed in languages that sounded only vaguely human.  
  
When he was spent, he returned to examining the obstacle between them. "What is all this rot?"  
  
"It's a gate."  
  
With a long-suffering sigh, he snapped, "Well, thank you, Miss Mandy Sunshine. I can bloody well see it's a bleedin' gate, you daft cow." Pete had been itching to step around the gateway, but having dealt with demons for Black Air and his sister's odd occult leanings, he knew anything demon-built had to have a trick at its heart. If you weren't careful, you wound up dead...or worse. He inspected the structure looking for clues to its nature. Over nine feet high, it looked like the drive-up gate to the palatial estate of a rock star. What was particularly strange was there were no walls attached to the gate. Held up by large concrete looking blocks, the iron bars kept no one in or out. "What's the catch? Is this a test?"  
  
Sefton shrugged in reply. "This is Limbo's only true doorway."  
  
"Bugger. Well, where does it lead?" Pete pressed. His guess was that it was a portal to somewhere, and he knew whatever he could imagine the truth would be much worse.  
  
Amanda slid the Soulsword from the sheath on her back. If Wisdom opened the gate, she wanted to be ready for the unseen court she knew waited, hidden on the side of the portal away from Pete's eyes. "Well, that really depends on you."  
  
The agent in him eyed the sword and laid out several reasons for its appearance. As Limbo was her territory and she had the advantage, he didn't think Magik's sword was for him. The trick of the gate had to be what was on a side of it he couldn't see; and, if it was bad enough the host was arming herself, then you had to worry. "You can't give me a hint?"  
  
"It's against the rules."  
  
"Good God, woman, whose rules?"  
  
"Trust me, you don't want to know. It's bigger than a breadbox, and a rough date."  
  
"Ouch." Falling back on his Black Air training, Wisdom reviewed his situation for options. He was most likely dead and in what Amanda called a crossroads in Limbo, a large gate that led to somewhere probably unpleasant stood before him, and his guide was an old teammate from his Excalibur days armed with an enchanted sword. He was in trouble.  
  
"If I open this gate," Pete asked with a casual gesture to the heavy bars between them, "are you going to use that sword on me?" His companion looked to be weighing her answer carefully before slowly shaking her head. "Oh goodie for me. Next question. Will you use it on..."  
  
"Just do what you're going to do, and stop playing twenty questions," Amanda snapped. Her nerves were fraying at this point, and drawing out the moment wasn't helping.  
  
Wisdom pulled out another cigarette and searched his pockets for his matchbook. He briefly glanced up at Magik and decided against it. He tucked the fag behind his ear with a mumbled, " 's for later." The trick seemed to be all about opening the gate. So, he decided to not open it and force a new plan of action, perhaps offering him a chance to go back to his life. Then with deliberate movements, Pete Wisdom -- one time spook, hero, and mentor to his own Future Heroes of America Club -- stepped around the gate with a smirk across his lips. "Ha! I trumped you."  
  
Amanda shook her head sadly. "How someone as smart as Kitty, could get mixed up with someone like you is beyond my understanding."  
  
'Hey now, no need to go and get mean on me, love," Pete admonished. "I take it I didn't win the prize in this game?"  
  
"You just damned us to a long walk," she retorted dryly and pointed back over her companion's shoulder.  
  
Pete glanced behind him, and was startled to find the view very much like the one in front of him. The large, iron-gate that had stood between them was now missing. "What's this nonsense about now?" He rounded back to the woman before him, determined through sheer will to glare the answer out of her. "Where's the gate, Amanda?" he asked in the dangerous tones of a man suddenly aware he was a punch line to a joke he wasn't understanding.  
  
"Limbo," she tried to explain calmly, "is not that hard to understand. It's a place of choices made or lack there of. Because it is the choices in our lives we don't make that become our invitation here."  
  
"But if I just use the force, Obi Wan, I can find my way to Endor and stop fantasizing about buggering Leia," Pete quipped. "Come off it, Amanda. Less mumbo jumbo, and just deal straight. What just happened? That was some sort of test, wasn't it?"  
  
"Yes, and you failed miserably." At her friend's grim look, her voice softened. "As I said, it's Limbo's only true doorway. If you had asked me to open the gate from my side, it would have led you to a plane of higher existence."  
  
Peter decided he could make a good guess at where he would have ended up, had he opened the gate from his side. She nodded as if hearing his unspoken thought. "Fucking Christ."  
  
"Seldom visits, I assure you." Sefton teased, trying to change the look on Wisdom's irate face. "It's okay to be overwhelmed, Pete. This isn't as if you stepped out to the corner store for cigarettes and got lost. This is Limbo, and it's meant to play with your mind. The test was about the choices we make. Since you made no choice, you're left to ponder that until given another opportunity."  
  
"Well thank you, Dungeon Master," he wryly retorted. He cast a glance around the bleak landscape. "Now what?"  
  
"We walk."  
  
Wisdom sighed. "Bloody brilliant, Sherlock. Where to?"  
  
"Doesn't matter, Pete. We walk until we reach the doorway again. Pick a direction and we'll start moving."  
  
"And how long will this take, eh? A day?" He massaged his temples and then pinched the bridge of his nose. "A year?"  
  
"What does it matter to you?" Sefton asked in serious tones as she turned and walked away. "You're already dead. Remember?"  
  
He jogged to her side, regretting it in the heat. "Well, how do I get myself un-dead. As charming as the company is," he smiled nastily, "it wasn't in my plans to stay, or trade in my fags for wings and a harp. My 'Alleluia Chorus' is a little rusty."  
  
Amanda shook her head in disbelief. "No one leaves here the way they came. It just doesn't work that way."  
  
"Unless you have red hair, big tits, and an X tattooed to your arse," Wisdom quipped. He loosened his tie as he spoke and slid his jacket off his shoulders, dropping it in the wake of his trail. "I had temporary membership into their little club. Doesn't that get me at least a weekend pass out of here? We'll just go see your big bads, poor some water on the witch, and I'm back to Kansas in time to feed Toto. I'll hitch a ride back with Jean or something. I'm sure she's around here somewhere."  
  
"No," She stopped him to explain more carefully. "You're dead. They've had a funeral, your team cried over you, and now it's now time for you to live a new life." Amanda turned and started away, her long red hair glinting in the strong rays beating down. "You're dead," she called back one more time for good measure.  
  
"A minor setback, I assure you," he grumbled, ambling after her. His feet kicked up dirt from the dry desert floor, and the small clouds of dust behind him rose up like smoke signals in the noonday sun.  
  
~not quite the end~ 


End file.
